Lord Hacking: My Lords, I support Clauses 12 and 13 no longer standing part of the Bill. Opposition to those clauses has been led by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. I support them on the very simple premise that the Government are attempting to sweep all legislation, including primary legislation which creeps up on secondary legislation; in other words, the secondary legislation has been adopted as primary legislation.
Before I go further—and I think I have attempted to do this already—I would like to put right the misconception that the EU law coming into our country was all under the carpet, that it was not considered and endorsed by Parliament. I suppose the Government have not put it quite so colourfully, but they could well say, on that basis, “What’s all the fuss about? The EU legislation arrived under the parliamentary carpet, why are you making all this fuss now?”
I want to correct that misconception. I sat for a number of years on the EC Committee and then the EU Committee in the 1980s and 1990s. I must have had about 10 to 12 years sitting on those committees—it was the same committee but it was renamed when the EC renamed itself the European Union. When I was  on that committee, we had very alert clerks and very good relations with Brussels. The result was that when a regulation that caused concern was being considered by the Commission, with great co-operation from the Commission we were shown the draft of that regulation, really in its final form, before it was introduced as a regulation. We would examine it. It happened on a number of occasions; I cannot count the number. Your Lordships’ European Committee considered in detail the regulation, took evidence, wrote a report and sent that report back to Brussels.
I do not want to fancy ourselves too much, but the House of Lords European Committee had a great reputation in Brussels. Of all the parliaments in the union, we were the most constructive. I suppose I have to include whatever the other place was doing. With our good relationship with the Commission, when the Commission read our report it was influenced and changed the drafting of that particular regulation.
Of course, of the many regulations that were brought through when we were in the European Union, I am referring to only a few, but it is an example of how we were involved in the creation of regulations in an influential way.
Before I turn to the clause stand part notices, I shall just add one extra thing to the case I was making for the Government earlier. I failed to add a further point the Government could legitimately argue: this time, Ministers will at least be looking at this legislation and, therefore, something is happening now that did not happen during the days when we were in the European Union. I concede that extra point to the Ministers, because I think it is fair to do so. But to go back, it is quite plain from the way Clauses 12 and 13 are drafted, relating not just to secondary legislation but to secondary legislation that has become assimilated into primary legislation, that this is just sweeping everything under the carpet. This is not satisfactory and that is why I suggest that we oppose the continued existence of Clauses 12 and 13.